1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an automatic transaction apparatus, its control method and automatic transaction system which execute screen control and automatic transaction operation according to the screen, content transmitted from a Web server by requests, and more particularly to an automatic transaction apparatus, its control method and automatic transaction system which operate by screen content, where screen information and device control information related to the screen are embedded.
2. Description of the Related Art
Automatic transaction apparatus are used for various transactions, and in the financial field, for example, automatic withdrawal machines and automatic deposit/withdrawal machines are used, and in other fields, automatic ticket machines and automatic issuing machines are used. In such automatic transaction apparatus, automatic transaction apparatus for depositing/withdrawing, issuing tickets and outputting various information using Web technology are provided as such networks as the Internet currently develop.
FIG. 27 is a block diagram of a conventional automatic transaction system, and shows an ATM (Automatic Teller Machine) for financial operations. As FIG. 27 shows, the WWW (World Wide Web) server 300 and the automatic cash transaction apparatus 400 are connected via a network.
According to the request of the automatic transaction apparatus (ATM) 400, which is a client, the server 300 transmits the Web page (screen content) 500 to the ATM 400. This Web page is created with a program for creating a screen to be displayed on the display apparatus using a page description language (HTML, JAVA (registered trademark) script), and relating to the display content of this one page (one screen), the control program of another device (e.g. card processing device, cash processing device, pass book processing device, itemized slip processing device), for which drive is controlled, is embedded as an object.
For example, as FIG. 27 shows, the Web page 500 is comprised of a screen content 502 having a screen creation program and applet tag for specifying an object (applet) and for specifying the execution method (method) by script, using the page description language HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language), and applet 510 which sets the program for executing the method of the object (applet).
This Web page 500 is downloaded from the WWW server 300 to the browser 410 of the ATM 400 according to the request of the ATM 400. In the ATM 400, on the other hand, the ATM middleware operates under the control of a kernel (OS), and performs I/O operations.(transaction operations). The ATM 400 has a card reader/writer unit 440, receipt/journal printer 441, bill/coin processing unit 442, pass book processing unit 443 and customer operation panel as the I/O mechanical units.
According to the screen creation program of the Web page, the browser 410 displays the screen on the customer operation panel, analyzes the applet tag of the screen content 502 and the method name, executes the corresponding program of the applet 510, and issues commands to the I/O units 440–443.
In such ATM control by a Web browser, it is proposed to specify the operation method (initialization in this example) of each device using the script (Java Script) of the screen content 502 by specifying the device interface sorting section (machine ID) as an embedded object (applet) of the screen content 502 for each device (e.g. cash processing device) as shown in FIG. 27 and FIG. 28 (e.g. Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2000-298752.
In this method, the device interface sorting section 420 is specified by the applet tag of the screen content 502, and the device sorting section 420 sequentially reads the script, decodes it, sorts it to the interface sections 430–433 which handles the operation instructions, and operates the corresponding I/O units 440–443.
This example shows the case of the device initialization operation command, so as FIG. 29 shows, the Initialize (“cash”) Script in the screen content 502 is read, the initialization command is sent to the controller of the cash processing device 442, the initialization completion reply is received, then the Initialize (“card”) Script is read, the initialization command is sent to the controller of the card processing device 440, and the initialization completion reply is received. Hereafter Initialize (x) Script is sequentially read, the initialization command is sent to the controller of the corresponding processing device, the initialization completion reply is received, and processing ends.
In this proposal, when ATMs with the same functions are controlled via the Web, a plurality of units can be operated by one applet tag of the screen content, the description of the HTML of the screen content can be short, and the embedded object can be simple.
However in Web control, the request must be sent from the ATM to the Web server each time the screen is changed in order to implement dynamic content. In the case of automatic transaction processing, the user must perform a plurality of operations, therefore a guide display for each of the operations is necessary.
Because of this, in the case of prior art, the number of requests from the ATM required for one transaction is high, so along with this, the number of times of communication with the Web server increases and the communication time and communication cost also increase. Also normally the Web server controls many ATMs, so load on the Web server increases, download wait time at the ATM (client) increases, and transaction processing takes time.
Also many ATMs do not have the same functions, but have different functions. For example, some process bills and coins as a cash processing function, but other process only bills, some perform passbook processing which other do not, and some perform deposit/withdrawal processing and other perform withdrawal processing only.
In order to control such ATMs with different functions by the Web, the Script itself of the screen content must be changed dramatically according to the constituting functions or units, even if the applet tag is the same, since the method to be called up is for each unit. In other words, it is necessary to design the description of the screen content according to the difference of the constituting functions and units of the ATM to be controlled.
Because of this, enormous labor is required for developing a Web page on the WWW server 300, and it takes time to add a new function (e.g. link function with a portable telephone).